19th
Century Women's Poetry

Born
in Plymouth, NH, Annie Douglas Green Robinson published two volumes of
children's poetry in 1870s as well as poetry in periodicals. She used
the pen-name "Marian Douglas."

One Saturday
I never had a happier time,
And I am forty-three,
Than one midsummer afternoon,
When it was May with me:
Life's fragrant May,
And Saturday,
And you came out with me to play;
And up and down the garden walks,
Among the flowering beans,
We proudly walked and tossed our heads
And played that we were queens.
Thrice prudent sovereigns, we made
The diadems we wore,
And fashioned for our royal hands
The sceptres which they bore;
But good Queen Bess
Had surely less
Than we, of proud self-consciousness,
While wreaths of honeysuckle hung
Around your rosy neck,
And tufts of marigold looped up
My gown, a "gingham check."

Our
chosen land was parted out,
Like Israel's, by lot;
My kingdom, from the garden wall
Reached to the strawberry plot;
The onion-bed,
The beet-tops red,
The corn which waved above my head,
The gooseberry bushes, hung with fruit,
The wandering melon-vine,
The carrots and the cabbages,
All, all of them, were mine!

Beneath
the cherry-tree was placed
Your throne, a broken chair;
Your realm was narrower than mine,
But it was twice as fair:
Tall hollyhocks,
And purple phlox,
And time-observing four-o'clocks,
Blue lavender, and candytuft,
And pink and white sweet peas,
Your loyal subjects, waved their heads
In every passing breeze.

Oh!
gay and prosperous was our reign
Till we were called to tea;--
But years, since then, have come and gone,
And I am forty-three!
Yet, journeying
On rapid wing,
Time has not brought, and cannot bring,
For you or me, a happier day
Than when, among the beans,
We proudly walked and tossed our heads,
And fancied we were queens.